Malakai Black was a recent guest on Talk is Jericho. During the interview questions obviously arose about his recent departure from WWE. Talking candidly, Black explained how he knew the writing was on the wall moments after he attacked Big E in his comeback moment.
Talking to new AEW roster mate Chris Jericho, Malakai Black explained how he had spoken to Vince McMahon ahead of his comeback, and the boss seemed interested in the storyline. However, it never felt right, and once it happened, he knew things were not going to work out.
“Two weeks before I attacked Big E. on the night of the last vignette, I had a sit down with Vince. And he was very convinced of it, he liked it. I just wanted to get his thoughts, I hadn’t seen him in six months, a lot happened at that point. So I wanted to sit down with him a little bit and kind of see how he was doing.”
“We had a little bit of, just a normal conversation. Like I said, I wanted to gauge, ‘How do you feel about it?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, no, I like it. I like it a lot,’ And then when we did the attack on Big E, I came back. Something about it just didn’t feel right, and I told my wife … I don’t know what it was. The way he looked, something about it, there was a disconnect.”
Malakai Black Doesn’t Hold a Grudge and is Happy to Be Wrestling Again
Talking more, Malakai Black said that ultimately, Vince is the boss at WWE, and so has the right to call the shots. He knew the moment he walked backstage after attacking Big E. One of those moments where you just look around, and you know.
“I kind of felt that he had made up his mind even back then. Which is, hey, it’s his company. It’s fine, no harm, no foul.”
Not long after his release Malakai Black realized his contract only included a 30-day no-compete clause. Something he couldn’t believe at first, but soon took advantage of, signing for AEW as soon as he could.
“I contacted someone within the company. I said, ‘Look, am I reading this correct?’ And this person said, ‘No, that’s correct. Even now, I’m looking at it, you have 30 days,’ and I’m like, ‘Alright, perfect.’”
Malakai Black’s debut in AEW will go down as one of the most shocking moments in their short history given the expected downtime people believed he would have following his release.
